In image capture, if a scene, or a part of the scene, is underexposed, the underexposed portion will appear dark, or even black, in the captured image. Under such conditions, details of the underexposed portion may be undistinguishable, and colors likewise distorted. Using an artificial light source (a source of light other than natural light), such as a flash, has long been known to illuminate a scene in order to increase the exposure of the scene when an image is captured with a camera.
A foreground object in a scene may be backlit, such as by sun or another light source behind the object. Using an artificial light source like a flash to increase the illumination of the foreground object is known as “fill flash,” and increases the exposure of the foreground object to reduce underexposure effects. When photographing people and/or other subjects in bright sun, shadow areas in the image can be so dark that they show little or no detail. If the shadow covers a large part of the subject, the effect can be distracting and unattractive. The camera user can lighten the shadow area(s) by using the flash to “fill” the shadows (i.e., fill flash). In this mode, the flash fires even though there is enough available light to take the picture. However, conventional fill flash methods may provide too much light to background objects that are not covered by the shadowed area(s), causing them to become overexposed. Overexposed portions of a captured image appear light, or even white, and details and colors of the overexposed portions may be lost.
Accordingly, there is a need and desire to provide a method and apparatus for illuminating a scene to increase exposure of underexposed backlit foreground objects while decreasing the possibility of overexposure of background objects.